Rikki Rockett talks about being diagnosed with oral cancer caused by HPV and the chemotherapy he underwent.
- Dec 17, 2015
AceShowbiz - Rikki Rockett has been diagnosed with oral cancer. The Poison drummer started getting ill in June and felt like he had a sore throat and a cold. A doctor at USC eventually discovered a tumor at the base of his tongue. It was caused by HPV, the human papilloma virus.
The musician was initially scared and didn't leave home for one week. "That kicks your dick into the dirt," the 54-year-old rocker said on Eddie Trunk's SiriusXM radio show. "But I went, OK, this is what I'm gonna do. I wanna beat it, so I'm just gonna go head first into this.' "
"At the end of the day, it was really the worst thing that you can go through, for me," he said. "It was just a battle that I had to get through, and I got to the point where I couldn't really talk. I had 16 canker sores in my mouth at one time. And it's, like, if you could take your throat and turn it inside out and sunburn it. ... I had to use this stuff called Magic Mouthwash just to drink the water. It hurt so bad, I couldn't. ... And I'm still on a liquid diet."
The chemotherapy and radiation finally paid off. "I went last week for my follow-up. Both doctors said I'm doing excellent, and they both have excellent prognosis," he said. And he credited his mother-in-law for her support. "I filed for divorce a few months ago, unfortunately. But my wife and I are on good terms, and my mother-in-law actually took me to radiation almost every day. I mean, that was a huge commitment," he stated.
The rocker explained why he kept the diagnosis quiet. "I wanted to see how I would do with [the treatment]. And I didn't want people to maybe come down to USC and [take] spy photos, like TMZ guys or something like that. And I didn't want anybody talking to my family about it or anything like that. It's, like, you wanna forget about it when you can," he said.
